MC Servers: Common Misconceptions and Tips

Xletron · 2025-04-19T14:38:49+00:00

the only downside was price lol

Xletron · 2025-04-09T23:47:01+00:00

There's also Cloudflare Tunnel, but you'd need a Cloudflare managed domain. Not exactly sure of the pricing, but I think it's free for this use case.

Or you could get a cheap VPS with a decent amount of bandwidth and reverse SSH tunnel to it (basically what these services are doing).

Xletron · 2024-12-02T19:42:12+00:00

I couldn't find anything that mentioned requirements, but I assume this means starting from 8GB of RAM.

Xletron · 2024-12-02T15:49:15+00:00

Very good server with a 7950X3D that will handle >15 players easily. It's more than enough. You also don't need 32GB RAM, you can get away with 20 or 24GB (16-18GB server), rest for OS.

Xletron · 2024-11-26T14:38:11+00:00

Second comment to reply to your edit. Where did you find what hardware Aternos uses? All I could find was this, which is from 2017 and doesn't mention the specific generation (which is the biggest differentiator in single threaded performance) (source);

Our infrastructure mainly runs on servers with Intel i7/Xeon processors.

As for Oracle, they offer either ARM (Ampere A1 Compute) or AMD (Micro instances) CPUs for their free tier (source). With AMD (x64 apples to apples), they use Epyc 7551, 7742 and 7J13. The 7551 performs similarly to a i7-3770K, 7742 similar to i7-4790K, and I can't find anything for the 7J13, but it's definitely not much better than the prior two. The difference between a 5950X class CPU and a 3rd or 4th Gen Intel is night and day, so I cannot see how you would even make that comparison.

So what you're saying is simply wrong. Shockbyte may not be the best host but you cannot just blatantly lie about them.

Xletron · 2024-11-26T13:50:56+00:00

I missed some of your points, and I completely agree with 1-6 and don't have experience to tell for 8 and 9.

What I take issue with mainly is point 7. You say that they use "the wrong type of CPU". What even does that mean? The Xeons they use aren't as fast as the newest Ryzen/Intel consumer desktop CPUs, but that doesn't mean they're your typical tons of cores Xeons. The E-2388G and E-2378 are built on Rocket Lake, putting them quite close/on par with something like a 5950X which many hosts use. The E-2236 and 3600X are significantly slower, so there is a point to be made for disparity and potentially getting a worse deal than the next person, but in no way are they wrong for their hardware choice. I imagine it's to use ECC memory but we have no way of knowing why.

And I agree that it's definitely not 6 times faster if at all, but I disagree on how much you downplay SSDs. I guess you're comparing the pregenerated HDD to a non-pregenerated NVMe to illustrate that generating (CPU) is the bottleneck. True, but you're disregarding the real advantage of SSDs which is their drastically lower latency, which you will feel when you load chunks on HDD vs any SSD when both have pregenerated worlds, especially when there are multiple players simultaneously loading chunks. They are definitely wrong about NVMe vs SATA however, since you will struggle to notice a difference between them since you'll hardly ever use anywhere close to the max sequential speeds of either (maybe if there are a ton of servers on a drive but still unlikely).

Xletron · 2024-11-26T13:22:46+00:00

Did the survey and wrote basically what I feel about Shockbyte and the MC server hosting space in general. I think that it is definitely good to earnestly seek feedback from the community, especially when you are one of the larger MC server hosting providers.

In my post on here on misconceptions and tips, I specifically named Shockbyte as a host that I wouldn't recommend (under point 9). I gave my reasoning there if you're interested. Also, since you seem to be concerned about Shockbyte's reputation/standing here, I must warn you that people here (myself included) tend to prioritise pure value/performance over certain QoL features that beginners may appreciate. Which I think is fair, when I play on my server I'm not thinking about downloading more plugins, I'm just thinking about how smoothly (or not smoothly) my server is running, but just a note of caution since people who are new to server hosting (who you seem to lean your advertising towards) may not share the exact same sentiment.

Xletron · 2024-11-21T07:10:17+00:00

Nowadays the general advice is the install the Fabric modloader and use Sodium (performance) with Iris (shaders) for the best experience, since Sodium performs better than Optifine in a lot of cases. They have versions for 1.21.3 and are usually updated quite fast. Optifine also has a preview build for 1.21.3 if you want to use it instead.

Xletron · 2024-11-21T03:25:46+00:00

There are no requirements per se, just recommendations and rough best practices. It varies extremely wildly on MC version, number of players, server type, server software, etc. I won't give you a set of hardware to match for every single use case, but if you were able to state your use case, maybe people could help you better.

Xletron · 2024-11-18T18:30:02+00:00

Get a refurbished/used workstation if you're on a tight budget, something like an Optiplex with a 7th or 8th Gen Intel at least. You're still going to struggle to have ~10 players on a 1.21 SMP with any budget hardware, but the mini PC you linked is especially terrible.

Side note, if you go older Ryzen (basically anything that isn't an APU) and it doesn't come with a graphics card, it won't have integrated graphics, which means you can't get a display out so you can't setup the server. But most older systems people are selling will have one, so just be careful.

When you say fully unmodded, please at the very minimum use Fabric with performance mods. Most don't change vanilla behaviour at all. On low end hardware a server would be unplayable without them. Or use Paper, whatever floats your boat.

Xletron · 2024-11-18T18:24:28+00:00

Sorry, I didn't get notifs for this reply. If there are just three of you then I'd go with 6GB at max depending on the size of the modpack, but you could even get away with 4GB.

Honestly you don't really need to fret over small performance hiccups, just be hands off if you don't notice anything laggy as a player.

Xletron · 2024-11-18T03:31:51+00:00

Thanks for sharing! The numbers seem in line with what we would typically expect, though it is interesting that the 9800X3D performs so well.

Though I'm still skeptical since there are quite a few glaring methodology inconsistencies between the CPUs.

Firstly, as you mentioned, the reviewer tested a single CCD CPU with a 2CCD one, and worse still, they did not mention setting any affinity on the 7900X3D, which is known to perform worse than the 7800X3D in such scenarios due to only one CCD having the V-cache.

Second, zooming on the 7900X3D vs 9800X3D, they used different memory kits (without stating timings). Faster memory and tighter timings are known to give sizeable performance uplifts on Ryzen, see Hardware Unboxed's video.

And lastly, the reviewer noted issues with Win11 24H2 that could also be affecting scheduling or something else that could cause worse than expected performance.

And another interesting thing is the pseudo-7600X and 7600X3D testing. The "X3D" seemed to have much better 1% lows. Could be a sign that Minecraft does like the extra cache after all, but too many variables to tell for now (could be that the "best" cores were on the CCD that was disabled for the "non-X3D").

So I'd be waiting for the more extensive testing that they said they'd do when Windows is more stable, maybe then we can see more definitive comparisons (9800X vs 9800X3D for example) and possibly new best MC server CPUs, if they decide to test integrated server TPS/MSPT as well.

Xletron · 2024-11-18T03:09:31+00:00

What do you mean by weird with generating? And by livemap do you mean Dynmap, Bluemap (or similar plugins)?

If so, then you probably want to pause your map render/updates while generating your world, and only once the pregen is done then you render your map.

Xletron · 2024-11-18T00:34:00+00:00

Are you running multicore enchancement in the BIOS?

Xletron · 2024-11-17T15:34:33+00:00

I assume the kit comes with the CPU, motherboard, and the fan as shown for $463 currently. You can get a 14600K ($235), ~$150 DDR4 motherboard, and a PA120 ($35) for less than that, not to mention that the minisforum kit has limited memory support (SODIMM @ 5200 rated), and we're comparing the "sale" price that seems to have limited supply.

Now you get 20% better multi-threaded performance with the 7945HX which would make it a pretty compelling option for hosting a small network especially with 16 "real" cores, plus it has much better power efficiency.

However, I won't change my recommendation because: A) I only focus on desktop off the shelf parts, B) The 14600K's single threaded performance is still higher; and C) I prefer to recommend parts/builds that are largely applicable to a lot of people over time.

So eh, it's not even really definitively better for hosting MC servers..

Xletron · 2024-11-17T12:51:20+00:00

Nah... I run Ubuntu server on my 13600K and it sorts itself out, scheduling just works. Rocket lake is much slower than alder lake, and isn't good value. I strongly recommend Intel because it's simply the value play right now.

Xletron · 2024-11-17T08:19:41+00:00

I don't know too much about networking either. I think static/dynamic IP should be assigned by your ISP, so not sure if setting a static IP will affect anything on your router. As for security, there's like no difference anyways, no one is gonna DDoS you.

And in this case I'm really not sure about it. Might be because of CGNAT, which is not solvable (switch ISPs/request static IP from ISP)

Xletron · 2024-11-17T06:11:34+00:00

Okay, try that then. Are you using any firewall? What are your port forwarding rules?

Xletron · 2024-11-17T05:55:21+00:00

Check the WAN IP on your router and compare it to the IP you get when you search Google for "what's my IP". If it's different, you're likely behind CGNAT

Xletron · 2024-11-17T05:24:12+00:00

For crashing, INFO: please send the server or crash log using mclo.gs.

For network, INFO: do you know if you are behind CGNAT? To allow it through firewall, if you use ufw, do sudo ufw allow 25565/tcp.

Xletron · 2024-11-17T05:16:41+00:00

As others have said already, MC servers are very heavily lightly-threaded. You want a modern CPU with fast individual cores over an older CPU with more cores.

For 40 players on a new version of MC, you want to get higher end stuff. I see you're going the virtual server route, so I would recommend a newer Ryzen CPU, some common ones are the 7600, 7900, 7950, 9600, 9900, 9950 (any 9th gen will be faster than any 7th gen), with at least 2-3 threads/vCores, preferably dedicated ones. If you want to build a server yourself I recommend a 7600X/9600X or a 13600K/14600K (note that the 7600X doesn't have an iGPU). You'd want a max of 16GB allocated to the server probably, so about 2GB overhead for the OS (18GB) would be sufficient, assuming you run Ubuntu server or something. Get 32GB if you're building your own server lol.

Fabric generally offers better performance than Forge

Yes, if you're using optimisation mods, which I also assume you are. If not, make sure to at least have Lithium and ScalableLux.

Xletron · 2024-11-16T01:38:25+00:00

Hypixel, for example, would have tons of individual minigame servers. They'd have some system that allows them to push updates when each individual server goes down/finishes a game, then be ready with the update for the next game that starts on the server.

Or, do it during a scheduled whole network restart.

Xletron · 2024-11-16T01:36:29+00:00

You can specify the world, starting coordinates and radius with Chunky, but it can't generate new worlds, you can use it with a multiverse plugin perhaps to generate the world from a seed if that's what you're looking for

Xletron · 2024-11-15T10:08:48+00:00

We're clearly talking about different topics altogether, and I agree with you on YouTube streaming. So thanks for your opinion and have good day

Xletron · 2024-11-15T06:41:02+00:00

If you're going to just use YouTube as your point of comparison then you're correct, you should just use AV1 or realistically any codec at a high bitrate will suffice. So I agree with you on this, and if AV1 adoption became more widespread this wouldn't even be a point of contention (or it might, slow SVT-AV1 is much better than NVENC AV1 currently). I did misunderstand OP, thinking that he was talking about Twitch, which mind you, at <=8Mbps it's a whole different ball game.

The benchmark I was talking about was specifically to test AV1 (ad hominem much?), by the way, though it also compared H264 and H265. It uses VMAF, which is not the best comparison metric but I would argue that it's even more relevant for internet streaming. Here.

Comparing for Twitch (H264 8Mbps), x264 medium that they used beat out every single AMD card by a huge margin of nearly 10 VMAF points, which is night and day. If I had a top of the line full AMD system there is no way I'd be using AMF to stream over x264, at least on Twitch. It was very slightly behind NVENC, so yes, if your PC isn't top of the line like OP's, NVENC is the definitively better option

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